A wave of Republican attacks against two Muslim Democrats has ended with one of the most prominent right-wing commentators in the country endorsing Abdul El-Sayed for Senate.
Tucker Carlson wrote in his newsletter on Friday that El-Sayed’s opponent, Mike Rogers, was unfit for office and defended him over his past criticism of the war on terror.
The Michigan Democrat emerged from this past week after a wave of attacks were hurled at him and Zohran Mamdani, the first elected Muslim mayor of New York, around the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Both men were the subject of intense focus from media organizations on the right and even some mainstream outlets as the two faced differing but related accusations of anti-American sentiment impossible to separate from their Muslim faith.
If this is an earnest statement then the whole situation says nothing about El-Sayed and it says a whole lot about Tucker Carlson’s desperation.
If it’s a ploy, which it definitely is, the fact that you are interpreting it the way you are seems like that would be entirely the point of this angle of propaganda. There is no way they didn’t know that your specific interpretation was going to be the exact reaction they would be fomenting with this. They know who Carlson is, we all do. This is all pretty obvious staging. If so, congrats, it worked perfectly on you. No one is immune to propaganda.